It’s our 2nd Tavern Live event – tune in later today [Friday 5pm US EST / Saturday 7am Korea Time] as the Tavern writers Jinseok Yang, Jae Chee and Tavern owner Roy Ghim discuss all the implications of the crucial friendly in Athens last Wednesday. It’s the return of Park Chu-Young, ‘Sonsationality’, Boss Hong’s tactics -what worked & what didn’t, how the roster is now shaping for the World Cup in June and so much more. You can ask us questions during the event via Twitter @taeguk_warrior (or see the Tavern Twitter window on your right). Join us in a few hours… and we’re done – but the event is archived on Youtube:

And that’s a wrap. Our 2nd live event over – it was a good discussion – though we did have some technical glitches. If watching -be on the lookout from about 30 minutes into the show – that ‘sound’ goes away at the 50th minute of the broadcast. Mein-ham-nee-da!

The win against Greece was a morale booster – it gives some confidence Hong is heading in the right direction, but there were a number of areas of concern still. Nevertheless: the Return of Park Chu-Young was huge and the narrative of the prodigal son returning to the KNT fold may be particularly apt as we ride with some confidence along with some uncertainty into Brazil for the World Cup.

For those that don’t venture in to see the hangout in its entirety, here is my Tavern Owner takeaway from the broadcast: in talking about the left back position (which Kim Jin-Su left exposed a few times during the game), I (sort of) asked “if Yun Suk-Young was playing regular minutes at QPR and was in form and all things being equal with the other options at Hong’s disposal, who would would be the best purely defensive left back for the KNT?” Yun would hold that distinction, so says Jinseok. Thinking outside the box, would Hong Myong-Bo pull another ‘Park Chu-Young’ and call him up despite his lack of game playing minutes? Jae thought that if Yun got a sniff of pitch action at QPR, Hong would use any excuse to draft him into action this summer…we will have to see. Nevertheless, Kim Jin-Su in earlier KNT appearances in the fall impressed enough for many to believe he could do the job adequately at left back. The mini USA tour might not have shown his best qualities. Then again, maybe the real Kim Jin-Su will eventually show up, but until we get closer to June, questions remain…

Jinseok wondered – if from boss Hong we’ll see any significant changes. We did talk up some possibilities -but what I forgot to mention was what changes we won’t see from Hong -simply because it’s what worked: Son on the left wing, Koo in the middle, Lee Chung-Yong on the right wing, Park forward (but not necessarily the up front lone striker) and the duo of Han Kook-Young and Ki Sung-Yeung playing somewhat deeper. That all sounds somewhat obvious, but it’s the exact lineup-formation that Hong has wanted to play for a long time but hasn’t until now (due to factors like injuries and Park not being en vogue due to lack of minutes at Arsenal). It was certainly effective on Wednesday, and potentially can be a productive unit for the KNT in June.

We did talk about Park Chu-Young’s knee slide/prayer goal celebration -which I theorized had previously injured him after his famous 1st-Korean-to-score-in-LaLiga goal for Celta Vigo. Well he did it again on Wednesday, and while they didn’t pinpoint how he did it- he sustained a minor left knee injury which turned out was the real reason Hong removed him (for precautionary reasons) at half time according to the Korean JoonGangDaily. KFA officials declined to say how serious the injury was as Park did not talk to the press. According the Yonhap news agency, Park Chu-Young rejected talking to reporters – despite prodding by the KFA.

Be on the lookout for the weekend listing soon at the Tavern. The other Tavern writers themselves may chime in further. Happy Friday ( Happy Saturday if you’re in Korea) !

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19 Comments

Hey, guys. I had a question to something you might not know the answer to, but it might be worthwhile to look into, especially Jae, since he’s in Korea. Is there a futsal scene in Korea? And maybe its development can help Korea in the long run.

another question for future mailbags, which is related to a conversation you’ve already had on K-League. Can you foresee professional soccer catching up to professional baseball in korea? it’s ironic that in the U.S. it’s already happening among the youth.

I have multiple questions.
1. Did Park Chu Young prove that he was absolutely ready to be our first team lone striker for Korea? If not, would Kim Shin Wook be good enough to be our first team lone striker in the world cup? How many goals do you expect Park chu young or Kim shin wook to score in the world cup?
2. Will Kim Bo kyung eventually overcome his recent form at Cardiff and become the very good footballer he used to be at the world cup?
3.. Will Sunderland avoid relegation in the premier league? If the team does avoid relegation, is it obvious that Sunderland will buy Ki after the season?
4. IS Lee Chung Yong going to go to a better club in the BPL, Bundesliga, or La Liga after this season?
5. Will any Korean goalkeepers ever go to Europe to play? Japan already has one goalkeeper playing in Europe his name is Eiji Kawashima.

We should mention that in the hangout – I didn’t see this until now so I want to post this as a comment from the Pretentious Shark from the Hangout session: I agree with that the expectations of Kim Jin Soo are very high and unrealistic but I think the reason for this is because of how Park Joo Ho is doing at Mainz. He is doing good at a world class league so maybe people would expect Kim Jin Soo would be as good as Park Joo Ho since he is more frequently chosen for first team than PJH.

That was actually pretty fantastic. I enjoyed it. The bells part had me on the ground. The camera controller was on fire. The bells really set it off and the looks on your gents faces were in strobe light effect. Other than that I didnt really mind them. Unintentional signature highlight.

And I love conspiracy theories. Roy’s knee injury thoughts were interesting because I hadn’t thought of it but its plausible I suppose. Mr. Park has a habit of not talking which I despise.

But I know Ill be looking to see how he celebrates his next goal thats for sure. That is where the answer will lie for Mr. Mysterio.

Im not sure what happened in this match because it was an abrupt change from the previous matches and it was glaringly obvious. The passing and first touch was very good. What was that? Korean tikitaka? Whatever it was it boosted Hong MB’s stock in a meaningful way.

I think your points on why this team performed much better compared to very recently left out one huge factor in my opinion. Because if that was a crucial friendly, Im not sure why Greece decided not to show up. IMO, the drop off in quality from when we play hard pressing teams vs a team who play like Greece is massive. Because of that I’ll keep the confidence in check. One thing I can say though is that I like Hong MB’s direction here.

Good points – reason for confidence should be tempered – I would hope that Greece wanted a show of force as their pre WC test – but who knows.

Korean tiki-taka! I like the sound of that! I know Hong when he got the job back in the summer was talking about the idea of not necessarily playing strictly as a carbon copy of Euro teams but wanted to install the idea that there is a Korean style to playing ‘chugu.’ But of course -all sorts of influences and styles have to part of the menu of options.

The bells/strobe light effect – well the unintentional experiment with these hangouts continue! wish we had some indie rocking soundtrack instead – just sayin’ 😉

Conspiracy theory -Yes! I mention the Park Chu-Young -knee slide prayer celebration=knee injury theory partly for fun —but there’s a part of me that really thinks there’s some traction to it. I’ll have a post about this in the future – but preview of thoughts: When Park scored that brilliant goal for Arsenal vs Bolton in League Cup 2011 followed it with knee/prayer celebration – what happened next? A deflating Champions league experience vs marseille. Goal as a Celta Vigo player vs Getafe in sept 2012 – 1st Korean to score in La Liga – he was definitely injured doing the knee slide b/c he dug his knees hard into the turf. He was sidelined for several games afterwards – with niggling knee injuries returning from time to time. His form varied afterwards – and not talking to press – you never knew the extend to the injuries and how that might have affected his time/performance on pitch.

my theory has some holes – what about all the tons of other goal celebrations without injury in the past for him? But, idk, maybe it’s his age catching up with him -and he just can’t bounce as quickly back?

It did not go unnoticed that we did beat them on their soil which is a huge plus of course but It was pretty obvious they just weren’t playing that well. Of course they made their way into the WC this year by the skin of their teeth but you could see in their eyes they just looked deflated about 20 minutes in. Of course that could also be do to the fact that they were demoralized by the run of play which was often in our favor. But Greece isn’t very good as their qualification campaign showed and that 12th FIFA ranking should be taken with a grain of salt for sure.

I had no idea though that your theory went that far back. LOL Ask yourself this though….If Park is getting injured by jesus sliding why does he keep doing it? He has a history of disappearing in his matches. He’s known for it. So until he starts doing standing or dancing prayers afterwards Im going to opt for the latter.

Great job guys. Roy, man, if I knew they were playing in Athens, Georgia, I might have flown there to watch! =P. Thanks for answering my questions. I wasn’t expecting them to be answered in this hangout, since it wasn’t really related to Greece match. Lol, but thanks! One of the reasons I asked is because Korea notoriously has very little space/land to have many fields for kids to develop their game. Even indoor space is hard to come by, but I thought that futsal might be a way to develop technical skills, especially perhaps in the winter.

I agreed with most of what you all said. In terms of Jinsu, I’m definitely being hard on him, but it wasn’t because I expected an all-star quality, but just not making big mistakes that can really cost Korea in the World Cup. I hope that what Jae said happens. That Yun gets a sniff and Hong takes him.

I’m one of those that somewhat defended Jung, though I was only saying he wasn’t as bad as he looked, especially in the highlight reel instances. Sort of the way Jae defended Jinsu. Ironic, eh? He was usually in the right place, but either had no chance to do anything or had happy feet. Overall, Jung’s positioning was usually solid, but had couple bad instances. The biggest thing was how, as you all also stated, he looked so hesitant. And to be frank, confidence is so huge for a goalkeeper, that without it, the opposition probably gains confidence. And though Jae never brought it up, perhaps part of the defensive unit’s mistakes could have been Jung’s lack of leadership in organizing them, since the GK often has that responsibility to communicate what he’s seeing, since he sees the bigger question. That would have been a good question to ask you guys: how you would rate his leadership/organizing of the defense.

I agree with Jae regarding HMB’s tactics. His tactics have been fairly consistent. When you are going through the World Cup preparation trying to determine who will make the team, the tactical adjustments are far less important compared to determining your personnel. The win would be great, but that isn’t the primary objective of the coach. This is why as Jae said that the US tour really didn’t matter in terms of Hong’s coaching ability. He has a distinct style, which is a little like Spain and Japan that is more possession based, but with his own variation, since Korea’s strength is more through the wings as opposed to Spain and Japan, whose strength is more up the middle. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, since I’m being pretty general.

The way Jinseok responded to the PJY haterade question was spot on. Korean netizens can be downright irrationally and unnecessarily vitriolic and idiotic. PJY may not talk to the press much, but I respect the way he doesn’t really kowtow to the netizens. I have a severe distaste for Korean netizens’ abilities to slander public figures in a way unlike any other place in the world. What happened to Tablo comes to mind, which shows by the way, you don’t have to be in Korea to be one of those nasty people. It was some crazy middle aged man from Chicago that started it all I believe. Anyway, as Jinseok said, if you’re a real KNT fan, you would not be hating on PJY. The sad thing, is chances are high that the ones most pissed off are the ones that would have tried to dodge in a heartbeat, but are angry that they had to go and take it out on others.

I had some other thoughts, but I’m tired now and am forgetting. Good job again, guys. The bells were ringing off the hook! Lol. Oh and Jae’s daughter was so cute. Peace!

P.S. I swear I’m not making fun. When you guys pronounce the players’ names with the heavy American accent it’s amusing in a quirky way. Something very diasporic (if that’s a word) about it.

I meant Jung “sees the bigger picture” not “question.”
Regarding Jinsu, I meant that I’m not being hard on him because I have unrealistic expectations like having all-star quality. I’m being hard on him for really big mistakes that could cost the team. On that cross that should have been tapped in, I was more bothered by the fact that, as Jae said, he just watched the ball and basically was not alert to his surrounding and his mark and was sort of lackadaisical. It’s not just that there was a mistake, but rather that the mistake was specifically his casualness during that cross.

LOL! that heavy american accent would be me – I can only imagine I’m butchering the pronunications of the players’ names to a bloody pulp -ha! …One day I’ll be legit with speaking hangukmal and pronouncing the right way- it’s on my bucket list.

I always get caught in two minds on pronunciation. To go with what I know in my head is the correct Korean pronunciation, or the American pronunciations that I’m somewhat used to. So, I kind of switch and mangle.

Yes, decent article – gives some useful info into some of what Hong is thinking – and gives credence to the Yun possibility…and Park out for 2 weeks? If I’m channelling and romanizing my parent’s hangukmal accurately: Ay-guh-nah!

and as Hong admonished the press for focusing too much on Park when the rest of the team deserves mention — have I been guilty about focusing too much on PCY? Yes BUT I had money on him so YOU know I gots to have my bragging rights on…

K League Classic

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P

1

Gyeongnam

9

2

Gangwon

9

3

Pohang Steelers

7

4

Jeonbuk Motors

6

5

Suwon Bluewings

4

6

Incheon United

4

7

Jeju United

4

8

Jeonnam Dragons

3

9

Sangju Sangmu

3

10

Seoul

1

11

Daegu

1

12

Ulsan

0

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March 18, 2018

Suwon Bluewings

1 - 1

Pohang Steelers

Ulsan

0 - 1

Jeju United

Jeonbuk Motors

2 - 1

Seoul

March 17, 2018

Jeonnam Dragons

1 - 3

Gyeongnam

Gangwon

2 - 1

Sangju Sangmu

Incheon United

0 - 0

Daegu

English Premier League

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P

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Manchester City

81

2

Manchester United

65

3

Liverpool

63

4

Tottenham Hotspur

61

5

Chelsea

56

6

Arsenal

48

7

Burnley

43

8

Leicester City

40

9

Everton

40

10

AFC Bournemouth

36

11

Watford

36

12

Brighton & Hov…

34

13

Newcastle United

32

14

Swansea City

31

15

Huddersfield Town

31

16

Crystal Palace

30

17

West Ham United

30

18

Southampton

28

19

Stoke City

27

20

West Bromwich Albion

20

Hwang Heechan

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1

Red Bull Salzburg

62

Bundesliga

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Bayern München

66

2

Schalke 04

49

3

Borussia Dortmund

48

4

Eintracht Frankfurt

45

5

Bayer 04 Leverkusen

44

6

RB Leipzig

43

7

TSG 1899 Hoffenheim

39

8

Stuttgart

37

9

Borussia Mönchengladbach

36

10

Augsburg 1907

35

11

Hertha BSC

35

12

Werder Bremen

33

13

Hannover 96

32

14

SC Freiburg

30

15

Wolfsburg

25

16

1. FSV Mainz 05

25

17

1. FC Köln

20

18

Hamburger SV

18

Kwon Changhoon

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10

Dijon

38

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The Tavern of the Taeguk Warriors is an online community of Korean football/soccer supporters. We bring you news, analysis and opinion in English about Korean players abroad, youth players and the K League.